SSS Cryptosoxery #12

This week we go back a century to a not-particularly-honorable but common aspect of baseball that is apparently in resurgence these days. But first, the answer to last week’s quiz:

At the end of his career, Connie (Mack)’s judgment failed him. As he watched his little second baseman, Nellie Fox, during the 1949 season, he saw nothing special, but very special he turned out to be. — Dale Smith

Nice to know that failed judgment doesn’t just belong to observers who might, oh, maybe, trade away Fernando Tatis Jr., and that sometimes the White Sox are the beneficiaries of such errors, not the victims.

This week, we harken unto the words of a White Sox Hall-of-Famer baseball person of much earlier days, though one not known to have referred to himself as such while trying to escape a DUI:

W DRIRJ JRAFJGRM GF GOR ATWGGRJ SDGWQ W KNA FLQWHRM GF. W DRNJQB

JSWDRM ZB NJZ GOJFKWDH PSJIRA. — JRM XNLRJ

For those not familiar with cryptoquotes, this is a simple letter substitution, same letter throughout the puzzle ... X might really be a J, R a Q and so on. You solve the puzzle by looking for the most common letters ... that would be E, followed by the Wheel of Fortune favorites, and by looking for common words or letter arrangements. This week’s Cryptosoxery is short, which gives a small sample size problem, but the presence of a one-letter word should help.

The answer, and a new quiz, next week.